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Chronic kidney disease affects an estimated 37 million people in the United States; of these,>800,000 have end-stage renal disease requiring chronic dialysis or a kidney transplant to survive. Despite efforts to increase the donor kidney supply, approximately 100,000 people are registered on the kidney transplant wait-list with no measurable decrease over the past 2 decades. The outcomes of kidney transplantation are significantly better than for chronic dialysis: kidney transplant recipients have lower rates of mortality and cardiovascular events and better quality of life, but wait-list time matters. Time on dialysis waiting for a deceased-donor kidney is a strong independent risk factor for outcomes after a kidney transplant. Deceased-donor recipients with wait-list times on dialysis of<6 months have graft survival rates equivalent to living-donor recipients with waitlist times on dialysis of>2 years. In 2021,>12,000 people had been on the kidney transplant waitlist for ≥5 years. As the gap between the demand for and availability of donor kidneys for allotransplantation continues to widen, alternative strategies are needed to provide a stable, sufficient, and timely supply. A strategy that is gaining momentum toward clinical application is pig-to-human kidney xenotransplantation. This report summarizes the proceedings of a meeting convened on April 11-12, 2022, by the National Kidney Foundation to review and assess the state of pig-to-human kidney xenotransplantation as a potential cure for end-stage renal disease., (Copyright © 2024 National Kidney Foundation, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

For patients with non-traumatic osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH), core decompression (CD) and bone grafts (BG) are mainly performed in the West, while osteotomy is found to be predominant in Japan. It is not well recognized how the surgical procedures for joint preservation in patients with ONFH are completely different between the United States and Japan. This paper identifies the contexts and the differences in treatment strategies for ONFH between the two countries. We compared the surgical trends of the two countries over three periods, 1997-2001, 2002-2006, and 2007-2011 (the US data for the third period was 2007-2008), based on a 2014 US paper and a 2013 national publication in Japan. We compared the details of surgery for non-traumatic ONFH under the same conditions in the two reports. For the period 1997-2001, the rates of surgeries for ONFH in the US were as follows: total hip arthroplasty (THA), 86%; CD, 10%; and osteotomy, 0.4%. In Japan, THA was 61%, osteotomy 38%, and CD 0%. For the recent period, 2007-2011 (US 2007-2008), the rate of THA was 91%, CD 6%, and osteotomy 0.1%, in the US, compared to a THA rate of 73%, CD 0%, and osteotomy 26% in Japan. The results for the interim period (2002-2006) were between the old and new data. The use of joint-preserving surgery for ONFH differs greatly between the US and Japan. The first-line joint-preserving surgery was CD in the US and osteotomy in Japan. Each procedure was rarely done in the other country. From about 2000 to 2010, the percentage of THA increased in both countries. The proportion of joint-preserving surgery (CD in the US and osteotomy in Japan) declined. The decrease in joint-preserving procedures may be largely attributed to improved long-term outcomes of THA due to technological advances. There is also a reluctance for young ONFH patients to undergo joint-preserving procedures, such as osteotomy, that require long-term hospitalization., (© 2021 The Authors. Orthopaedic Surgery published by Chinese Orthopaedic Association and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.)

The study determined concentrations of and estimated human exposure to house dust-ingested phthalates from 99 homes in Bangkok, Thailand. Phthalates in dust collected using a handheld vacuum cleaner was analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry revealing a median content of 3,477 µg g -1 , range 753-13,810 µg g -1 , with di-2-ethylhexylphthalate (DEHP) having the highest level (median = 1,739 µg g -1 , range 467-8,172 µg g -1 ) followed by di-iso-nonyl phthalate (DiNP) (median = 611 µg g -1 , range 15.2-11,052 µg g -1 ). DEHP in house dust from multi-family apartments with polyvinyl (PVC) floor material ( n  = 34), multi-family apartments without PVC floor material ( n  = 55) and single family houses without PVC floor material ( n  = 10) was median and range 3,009 and 568-6,898; 1,479 and range 467-8,172 and 1,207 µg g -1 and 611-3518 µg g -1 , respectively. At high-end house dust DEHP level, preschool children in all three types of homes were exposed above US Environment Protection Agency reference dose (20 µg g -1 ). The results suggest phthalate-containing house products constitute a likely major source of phthalates in indoor home environment and pose a potential health risk to residents, particularly preschool children, in Bangkok.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to develop a simple and cost-effective method for the determination of urinary 4,4'-methylenebis (2-chloroaniline) (MBOCA) by gas chromatography-electron capture detection (GC-ECD) for biological monitoring of occupational exposure to MBOCA., Methods: MBOCA was prepared by liquid-liquid extraction after alkaline hydrolysis, derivatized with N-methyl-bis (trifluoroacetamide) and then analyzed using GC-ECD. The proposed method was validated in accordance with the US Food and Drug Administration guidance., Results: The calibration curve showed linearity in the range 1-100 µg/l, with a correlation coefficient of >0.999. The limits of detection and quantification were 0.3 µg/l and 1 µg/l, respectively. The recovery was 94-99%. Intraday accuracy, expressed as the deviation from the nominal value, was 90.5-100.3%, and intraday precision, expressed as the relative standard deviation, was 0.3-2.4%. Interday accuracy and precision were 87.8-100.2% and 0.3-4.1%, respectively., Conclusions: The proposed method is a simple and cost-effective method suitable for routine analyses and could be useful for biological monitoring of occupational exposure to MBOCA.

We present electrostatic force microscopy images of double-stranded DNA and transcription complex on an insulating mica substrate obtained with molecular resolution using a frequency-mode noncontact atomic force microscope. The electrostatic potential images show that both DNA and transcription complexes are polarized with an upward dipole moment. Potential differences of these molecules from the mica substrate enabled us to estimate dipole moments of isolated DNA and transcription complex in zero external field to be 0.027 D/base and 0.16 D/molecule, respectively. Scanning capacitance microscopy demonstrates characteristic contrast inversion between DNA and transcription complex images, indicating the difference in electric polarizability of these molecules. These findings indicate that the electrostatic properties of individual biological molecules can be imaged on an insulator substrate while retaining complex formation.

The pathology residency training in 1960s in USA was described through the author's experience in University of Miami School of Medicine and Jackson Memorial Hospital. After the author passed the American Board of Pathology examinations in both Anatomic Pathology(AP) and Clinical Pathology(CP) successfully, the author returned back to Japan, and tried to introduce the residency training program. However, the Japanese Society of Pathology and the Japanese Society of Laboratory Medicine(formerly, Japan Society of Clinical Pathology) have established independently their certification systems for pathologists and laboratory physicians.